The Rise And Fall And Rise And Fall Of Gabby Jay
by HardHatShetland
Summary: What happens when you take a legendary boxing champion, snap his spine and give him amnesia that turns him into an incompetent wreck of a man? You get someone like Gabby Jay. But Jay doesn't give up easily. When one of his old rivals shows up and offers him a sure-fire way to reclaim his former glory, naturally, he snaps the opportunity right up... big mistake. (Mild profanity)


**AN: This fanfiction, or at least Gabby Jay's history in it, is based off of a theory I wrote regarding him, which can be found on my dA page. That's the primary reason why I say that Jay trained Joe and not the other way around, the main liberty which I have taken. Now that's out of the way...**

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Somewhere in Paris, there's a shabby apartment. Not lower class _banlieue_-level shabby, but shabby in comparison to its surrounding dwellings, which were, in turn, rather shabby compared to the surrounding buildings. Overall, very shabby.

If you want to get technical, this apartment was on the twenty-third floor of a high-rise, 1960s apartment building on the left bank of the Seine, in _arrondisement des Gobelins_, the 13th _arrondisement_, or administrative district, of Paris. It stuck out like a sore thumb among the surrounding developed areas thanks to its blocky, brutalist style which just screams 'Cold War' at you. In fact, if you walk inside the building, you can almost smell the distinctive scent of Vodka smuggled in by Soviet spies. Which just goes to show much they must have brought in since it's practically odourless anyway.

Now, the apartment on the twenty-third floor wasn't shabby by design or by error on the part of the landlord, it was shabby by neglect on the part of the sole resident. How shabby was the apartment, exactly? Well, the living room was essentially a grimy white-walled cube with splintered wooden floors, filled up with cardboard box upon cardboard box of assorted junk, most of it apparently old boxing memorabilia. There were only two open spaces: one by the front door through which people could get in, and one by the window, your standard cheap white plastic framing with a view of Paris' Chinatown, which hosted an old armchair, an extremely primitive TV from the 70s, and a pile of books, again, most of them related to boxing in some way. It was upon this chair that the man himself sat.

The resident was a Frenchman of fifty-six years of age, and had the decrepit appearance to back it up, with his combed-over grey hair, giant moustache and vast collection of wrinkles. He was wearing some kind of dull grey nightgown over the top of an equally dull grey t-shirt and black boxer shorts, and, in a departure from the general dullness in the air, he was wearing bright pink fuzzy slippers shaped like a Hippopotamus' head, googly eyes and all. The man's name was Gabriél Piérre De Jacquarqué, but that name is far too long for all but the most precise and patient of people, so we'll just refer to him by the name that most people use: Gabby Jay.

You may have heard of him before, and with good reason. Back in 1990, twenty-three years prior, he claimed the title of WVBA World Champion from Congolese giant Chuma Kifaru, thought to be unstoppable, and held it for exactly four years and five months. During that time, he became something of a legend amongst boxers, bar brawlers, energy drinks manufacturers, the French, bakers, French bakers, French baking, boxing, bar brawling energy-drinks-manufacturers, and people who admire the colour blue-grey everywhere. He even set up his own boxing gym outside Paris, a vast, five-storey complex he dubbed 'Glass Joe's Boxing Academy', as he was always a big fan of major irony. He was especially known for his fighting style, said to be as hard-hitting as an overweight Elephant riding a seventy-foot-tall mechanical war machine stomping on your face, yet faster than a Cheetah on meth riding a sports motorcycle pulled by Concorde (to be fair, the commentator who came up with that was known for poetic exaggeration). He was so powerful, apparently his mere words were knockout-prone, as proven by his role in the famous face-off of 1993, where his favourite student TKO'd the infamous powerhouse Nick Bruiser in his very first bout, thanks to Gabby Jay's constant guidance, ultimately prompting Nick and his older brother Rick to retreat from the public eye out of shame.

Of course, since all good things must come to an end, he was eventually challenged by a Floridian fellow called Jerome 'Doc' Louis in 1994, who had devised a revolutionary boxing technique called the 'Star Punch', said to utilize Voodoo enchantments to sap the opponent's Quality of Life, or QoL, and throw it back at them in the form of a powerful strike. At this point in his career, Gabby Jay may have become somewhat complacent with his nigh-invincibility, just as Chuma Kifaru did before him. This was evident in his subsequent performance in the fight with Louis, in which he failed to hit the flailing, sliding-like-he-was-standing-on-a-banana-peel-on-g reasy-black-ice Louis, who had managed to dodge all his attacks and sap enough QoL for nine 'stars'. Then the shit really hit the fan when Gabby Jay decided that he wasn't messing around any more and stopped to tell Louis just that- allowing Louis to unleash his Nine-star Star Punch, which not only TKO'd him in a single hit, but also had the unintended side-effect of breaking his spine like a stale baguette and sending him into a coma.

He woke up in hospital five weeks later to find out that he had almost died, that the short-sighted WVBA had erased all his records in an attempt to prevent a public uproar surrounding his 'death', and the injury he received gave him serious amnesia; he had completely forgotten every single boxing trick and manoeuvre he had learned throughout his entire twenty-two-year career. Indeed, he didn't even know what the hell a WVBA is when he first woke back up. The doctors told him he apparently owned a boxing academy, and so, against constant advice otherwise, he went marching out of bed at the first opportunity and made his way to the Glass Joe Academy. His students, refusing to believe that the legendary Gabby Jay was dead, had been waiting for his return… only to storm out the door as fast as possible when they saw what an incompetent wreck he had become. Well, everyone except for his favourite student, who had realized he is an extremely crap boxer without Jay's mystic words and came to him for further advice, failing to realize it was advice that had been beaten out of him five weeks before. Gabby Jay beat him in the ring the next day, and from that day forward, that student would be known as Glass Joe, cursed by the name of the now-demolished academy of his broken teacher to lose for all eternity. As for Gabby Jay, that would be the last of his wins for years to come, as he foolishly went back to the WVBA to reclaim his former status, only to be beaten within an inch of his life again and again, prolonging his amnesia in the process.

The WVBA changed a lot for the next twenty years or so. Doc Louis held the championship far too long for his liking and retired to become a chocolatier, and further champions came and went at a pace far too rapid for the rapidly decaying Jay to keep up with. While Jay was getting his skull hammered by Georg Von Kaiser, of all people, in the middle of the eventful year of 2009, Doc Louis had come out of retirement, his stint as a chocolatier being less than successful (he had pictured himself as a less creepy version of Willy Wonka, but instead ended up coming across as hilariously inept and unhygienic, stirring vats of chocolate fondue with his bare arms and sometimes lapping it up like a cat) and taken on his first and only boxing student, a teenager from the Bronx known as Little Mac. Jay, now having lost most of his remarkable amounts of muscle, his sweeping jet-black hair and traded his distinctive soul patch for a giant moustache, was _still_ getting bucketloads of snot and tears beaten out of him by the PTSD-suffering German when Little Mac, the so-called 'Prodigal Myth', defeated the then-current champion, John Curtis Caramie AKA Mr. Sandman of Philadelphia and claimed the Champions' Belt. If that wasn't insane enough already, he then went on to defend his belt _thirty-five times in a row _before he was finally defeated thrice in his much-hyped 'last stand', giving the Champion's Belt back to Mr. Sandman, only to have it taken from him by Nick Bruiser a year later, who had suddenly made an unexpected comeback with his brother.

Gabby Jay wasn't left out of Little Mac's unrelenting series of beatdowns, however, as, for whatever reason, Mac dyed his hair blonde, came out of retirement at the end of 2012 and entered the new WVBA, with Jay as his first opponent. It was here that Jay finally suffered his landmark, soul-crushing centennial defeat, and decided to sit out the rest of the tournament in his shabby apartment, endlessly smoking and eating Chinese food while brooding on his failures. Well, on the plus side, at least he had become a well-respected elite member of the _Association des __Professionnels Parisiens Moustache Producteurs de Paris _(APPMPP).

So yes, now you now how he got here, but what was this man doing now ? Well, just like his student after he suffered his centennial defeat, his spirit is indomitable and absolutely unbreakable, and he had just spent the first few weeks of 2013 searching for experienced boxing trainers, but of course all the ones he had found considered him absolutely hopeless and suggested he stick to moustache-cultivating. His best hope for a coach, an old Chinese friend and fellow senior citizen called Hoy Quarlow, was busy schooling cartoon artists in Japan on how to properly represent a good fight and the people who participate in them (i.e. not as lady-boys), leaving Jay in the dust. At this point in time, Jay was once again shovelling sweet & sour chicken into his mouth while watching the latest news on the WVBA (or at least attempting to, given the poor quality of his TV).

Much to some people's surprise and other people's expectations, the Bruiser Brothers, having considerably toughened up following Nick's humiliating loss to Glass Joe, had both been defeated by the Prodigal Myth a mere week earlier. Just about everybody, even the Bruiser Brothers themselves, credited not the Prodigal Myth and his natural skills, no matter how great they may be, but instead they credited the Star Punch. Indeed, many combatants in the WVBA had tried, unsuccessfully, to get the technique banned, with the most spectacular being the Irish madman Aran Ryan, who had posted a video on the internet depicting a promotional figurine of Little Mac getting thrown onto a pub fireplace while Ryan went on a forty-minute rant about how 'bleedin' unfair' the Star Punch is and how it constituted witchcraft in front of a crowd of thirty-one drunkards, give or take. Made him an instant hit amongst the internet community, finally surpassing the WVBA's other contribution to the internet, Super Macho Man's 'Release The Bogus'.

As Jay watched all this news go by, he reflected on his past, once again trying to claw together some kind of skeletal memory of how exactly he managed to rise as far as he did. His solid long-term memory stops just at his 15th birthday, blanks out for twenty-two years, and suddenly restarts after he came out of his coma. He had managed to mostly fill in that gap with Hoy Quarlow's help, but Jay in his prime was a self-taught champion, so his techniques and tactical prowess were lost for all eternity. He knew that nothing short of a time machine which he could use to travel back in time and get his past self to train him (instead of, you know, warning him not to fight Doc Louis in the first place, avoiding the whole mess. His brain was damaged in other ways) could help him regain his former glory, but his stubborn determination that surpassed even his students' (evidenced by his refusal to wear headgear, the 'reward' for losing a hundred times) meant he tried anyway.

The old man puffed on a cigarette to help him focus, not even caring that it would probably give him lung cancer in a few years, when suddenly he was jumped nearly to the point of a heart attack by a tremendous thumping at the door. He switched his TV off and scratched his decayed head in confusion and nervousness. Who the hell ever comes here? Nobody visited Jay in his overcrowded junk heap of an apartment except for the thief from the banlieue who occasionally helped him as part of his community service, but he had just been thrown back in prison a month earlier for stealing bubblegum from a judge. Not to mention, it was only eight-thirty in the morning anyway. Jay, as damaged as he was, was right to be paranoid.

He slowly rose out of his chair, subtly shaking and twitching as he always does when mobile, and proceeded to retrieve a gun wedged inbetween the pile of his books to his side. The gun, a British Webley Mark IV, was an antique he had bought at a Chinatown flea market, and his possession of the weapon was, in fact, illegal, as he had no license and the weapon wasn't quite old enough to qualify as 'historic' in the eyes of the French legislators. Of course, he had never fired a gun in his life and has never needed to, but there was always a first time. In his case, he'd probably miss and shoot the paper-boy instead, since his accuracy with anything bar moustache cultivation was on par with a hyperactive chimpanzee on rollerskates.

He held the gun behind his back and walked slowly and uneasily to his front door, looking through the peephole. As it happened, he could only see a vast black mass of cotton standing in front of the door, obscuring whatever else there was to this strange visitor. He grabbed the door handle and turned it for a literal ten seconds before opening it a tiny amount, allowing him to peek around and get a clearer view of the visitor.

He was a tall man. Very tall. Seven feet tall, in fact. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt with white sleeves attached, cream trousers and black trainers. His head was large and bald and so shiny you could probably blind someone with it, and he had both his ears pierced with simple silver rings. It was clear that he was not somebody to be messed with, if his muscles with the consistency of concrete pillars were anything to go by. Jay recognised this man, and he was about as pleased as he would be if someone had posted a bomb through his letterbox.

"R…r-r-rick Bruiser?!" He exclaimed in his gravely French accent, making 'bruiser' sound like 'brooz-air'.

"Eeeeeeeh, Gabby Jay! Long time, no see!" Replied Rick cheerfully, displaying his shining teeth in the process, before spontaneously shoving Jay towards him and giving him a one-armed hug that the terrified Jay did not return, being terrified and all. Jay managed to get himself together and return to his unbreakable wall of a self soon enough, however, keeping his gun hidden behind his back so as to avoid provoking the metaphorical dragon.

"What on earth do you want, _monsieur_ Bruiser?"

"I won't lie, I just happened to be visiting the Louvre when I thought to myself 'oh hey! Gabby Jay lives in Paris! I ought to see him!' Because who the hell would turn down an opportunity to meet such a legend in the flesh? Nobody, that's who!"

"Pffffffffffft." Went Jay, spitting everywhere. "I can tell you didn't get the memo on how I almost got my saggy ass killed twenty years back! Does that sound legendary to you?!"

"Yeah. That's why I'm here."

"C'mon now, that's the exact opposite of- oi, watch it!" Was how he responded when Rick unceremoniously barged his way past Jay into the apartment. "What are you doing, you crazy _salaud_? You can't just barge into people's homes!"

"Relax, old guy. I just want to have a look at your Quality of Life. Your apartment in particular. Looks like a right dump. What happened to your swanky penthouse in Monte Carlo?"

"I sold it so I could pay off the vast amount of taxes I had accumulated during my *ahem* sleep. Plus, it was too big. I hate big."

"What about the Lamborghini?"

"Sold that too. That was for gambling debts."

"And the Picasso?"

"Sold it. Thought it looked ugly as _merde_ in here."

"Okay, what about the trophies? Surely you didn't sell those."

"_Oui_, trophies all gone. Gave 'em to my nephew because he wouldn't stop bitching about his student loans."

"Geez, Jay. Is there anything you _haven't_ sold?"

"The crap in these boxes. Heh, 'boxes'. They're off to the Chinatown flea market when I can remember to do it."

"What the hell do you need all the money for? So you can buy a better house?"

"So I can live, and possibly pay for a decent coach so I can get a goddamn win for once in my life."

As he said that, he sat back down miserably slumped into his armchair, his alertness and confidence dropping off the scales for a moment and causing him to drop his gun, drawing Rick's attention to it.

"Are you going to sell that gun?"

"_Peut-être. _I'd rather not, though. I might need it in case that pigeon flies in here again."

"…Right."

With that declaration of confusion, Rick thumped his way across the room, ducking slightly as the ceiling was too low to contain him fully, and inspected a picture on the wall, hidden by one of the boxes. He pushed the box over, revealing the picture in full. It was an artist's impression of Jay's historic victory against Chuma Kifaru. There he was, in all his buff, soul-patched glory, standing tall over the fallen Congolese giant, an enormous bruise on his face and blood trickling from his bent nose, while Jay was almost completely untouched. Of course, the actual fight was much more even, to say the least, and Jay was far from untouched.

"You gonna sell this?"

"What?! Of course not! I need _something_ to remind me that I was once the champion of the WVBA!"

"Fair enough. But, y'know, if it were me in your situation, I'd get rid of it. It'd just instil me with false hope, making the situation even more bleak and hopeless."

Jay suddenly jumped out of his seat, grabbing his gun and pointing it at Rick's head at surprising speed, albeit incredibly shaky and slurred.

"Are you saying I'm hopeless, too?! ARE YOU?! _Tout le monde peutgagner! __Bête!_ _Crétin!_"

Rick sighed and gently lowered Jay's arm, knowing full well that Jay wouldn't shoot him. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, since the gun wasn't even loaded. "Jay, you're nuts, I'm not gonna lie. But sometimes, that's a good thing. When you were champ, you were just as nuts, but you used it to your advantage."

"What does it matter?! I can't even remember how I fought! My 'fighting spirit' doesn't mean _merde_ if I can't even throw a punch at the right time and place!"

"To be honest with you, I'm surprised. You've been sitting here in this hovel, brooding over your troubles, when the solution has been right in front of you the whole time."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"Remember, I said I wanted to check on your Quality of Life. You've seen that infamous Aran Ryan rant, haven't you?"

"_Oui_, who hasn't?"

"Well, remember when he said that Little Mac's Star Punch runs off of his opponents' Quality of Life? As deluded and insane Ryan is, he was right about that."

"Are you telling me that the Star Punch is black magic?! Pfft-hahaha, and you're calling me nuts! _Incroyable!_"

"Jay, the WVBA counts Anjay 'Great Tiger' Sayewardenepura among its ranks. He teleports, empowers his punches with elemental energy, creates ethereal copies of himself, and whips up freakin' tornadoes in the ring. I don't think this idea is particularly far-fetched by comparison."

"Hmm, well, when you put it like that…"

"Anyway, that doesn't matter. The point is, if a scrawny eighteen-year-old who's half the size of just about everybody in the WVBA can beat my younger bro with the Star Punch, then just imagine what a grizzled old boxing veteran could do with it."

"Don't be a fool. Nobody knows the exact technique except Doc Louis and his student. If it went public, everybody would become superheroes or some crap."

"True. Until now."

"…What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I know the technique, and I'm willing to teach it to you. With the Star Punch under your wing, you could stand a chance at reclaiming your former glory. You might even beat me and my brother! Wouldn't that be fun?"

Suddenly, a smile began to form on Jay's face, something that doesn't appear very often; not even when he gets a good fortune in his fortune cookies does he smile. "…You… you would?"

"Absolutely. It pains me to see a legend toil away in obscurity when he should be racking up wins like… like a, um… like a razor… slicing away long, intrusive hairs blurring the perfect form of a moustache."

The smile on Jay's face faded away quickly as he became sceptical about this sudden revelation. "How do I know you're not lying? Doc Louis is good at keeping secrets. Just look at how long it took for people at his chocolate business to figure out a stray coyote had fallen into one of the fondue vats."

"Trust me, I may not fight as much as my bro, but I have a lot of friends in the WVBA. They're not exactly renowned for its altruism and ethical conduct, as evidenced by their decision to erase all of your records and claim you were just some random cafe waiter in the Eiffel Tower once you 'died'."

"Alright, alright, you've made your point. Name your price."

"Price? Jay, please, I'm no mercenary. I'm giving this to you for free."

"Seriously?! Nah, it's too simple. There's always a catch to these sorts of things."

"Well, there is one thing I'd suggest you do. Y'see, me and my bro have gathered together some old friends and set up our own private boxing circuit in San Francisco, sponsored by MaChismo Holdings Corporation™, with a huge cash prize and a lot of publicity involved. The winner will get to fight my bro, face to face, and see if anyone else can beat him. He mostly sees his part in it as a training exercise, to make sure he's back on top so he doesn't lose to anyone else like he did to Mac… and Glass Joe. But I see it as a great way to let people know that Gabby Jay is back, and he ain't screwing around anymore."

"So you want me… to beat… your brother? The one man who could beat _you _if he found out about this? I'm not convinced."

"Suit yourself. But, in case you change your mind…"

Rick promptly took a damp, folded-up flyer out of his pocket and handed it to Jay. Jay quickly unfolded and examined it closely. It displayed a darkened picture of Nick Bruiser, his menacing blue eyes glowing in the dark, his yellow boxing gloves hiding the bottom of his face. It read:

BOXERS

YOU, NO DOUBT, WANT GLORY, VICTORY, MONEY, WHATEVER.

THIS MAN, ON THE OTHER HAND, WANTS FLESHY PUNCHING BAGS

AND HE'S TAKING VOLUNTEERS.

WHAT ARE YOU? A FIGHTER, OR A TARGET? FIND OUT IN THE ALL-NEW BRUISER LEAGUE!

DEFEAT THE COMPETITION, WIN RICHES BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS, AND SEE IF YOU'RE TOUGH ENOUGH TO TAKE DOWN THE ONE AND ONLY NICK BRUISER!

To enter the Bruiser League, simply win a qualifier match at one of the designated gyms, including, but not limited to, the ones listed on the back of this flyer. For a full list of designated gyms and more details, visit our website at www. NickBruiserwillknockyouthehellout .com.

This event is sponsored by MaChismo Holdings Corporation™, releasing the Bogus upon retail since 1999.

Rick spoke up while the examination was underway. "The nearest qualifier's being hosted next Wednesday at precisely 9 O'clock in the morning at the Accroupi Imbécile Gym in the 19th Arrondisement. I have no idea who else is going to turn up, but, in any case, i'll be waiting for you if you change your mind. The Star Punch doesn't take too long to teach. Just a few simple chants. See you around."

With that, Rick turned around and left the apartment, thumping the floor all the while, closing the front door firmly behind him. Jay didn't even respond, being too engrossed in this new opportunity. He stared at the flyer for nearly five minutes straight, and that rare smile began to form again. He could regain his old pedestal, oh yes, he thought. He was so absorbed in his newfound optimism that he completely ignored That Pigeon he previously mentioned flying in through the open window and fluttering about in his face. If anything, he was welcoming it. It was a sign from the forces that be, no doubt. Even the soil it soon delivered upon his head.


End file.
